Chapter 22
Chapter 22
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>Translator: Lord First
>Chapter: 22
>Chapter Title: The Status Window Opened on the First Day of School (6)
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*
Maximilian was a transmigrator. And there were supposedly more.
Setting aside the fact that he had never heard such a thing, what had become of them?
The Hero had vanished. He had secluded himself somewhere in the deep mountains of Tilles, abandoning his wife and daughter.
It was something no one could comprehend. But Ivan felt he might be able to. It was, it was…
‘Did he… go back…?’
Ivan bowed his head, his face pale. Was it possible to return? Was killing the Demon King the condition? Then for me… my condition is…
-Smack—!
His vision flashed, and his head snapped to the side. The pain followed a moment later. Feeling the sting on his cheek, Ivan turned his gaze.
Enrique was looking at him with sad eyes.
“Snap out of it. We’re not done talking.”
“…Enrique.”
“Yes. You recognize me. Good.”
Enrique sank deep into the sofa and let out a sigh. This boy was lacking sleep. No, he was lacking rest. Now she finally understood why.
It wasn’t an issue of some mental illness acquired from the war. This boy was dissociated. He perceived this place as reality while simultaneously wishing it wasn’t.
Therefore, he couldn't have rested. So lonely, for all that long time. He must have chewed on the solitude of every night and agonized over the strangeness of every day.
Transmigrators. Wanderers ‘dragged’ from another world. Enrique pitied these people. Especially this taciturn, twisted madman.
She looked her disciple straight in the eye and slowly began to speak.
“They say everyone comes with their own story. Only a few records remain, but that was the case for most. For some it was a story, for others a legend or myth, for some a novel, sometimes a play, and there were cases where they described something else entirely.”
“…They were all different?”
“Yes. In other words, each had their own story.”
There was no common thread as to what kind of story had guided them.
But they all felt they had fallen into a story they admired.
It was impossible to determine by what trigger or in what way this had happened.
“What kind of end… did they meet… the transmigrators?”
This was the most critical question Ivan held. What kind of ending was destined for him?
“Some disappeared again, some died, and others remained.”
“The Hero, Maximilian?”
“He went into seclusion, as you know. Who knows if he returned in that time or if there was another reason. It’s not like we can go and ask him, and there’s no way to meet him.”
Ivan lowered his head, feeling dizzy.
Everyone with a different story, everyone with a different ending… What was his ending? To be eternally preserved in this world? Was there no way to return? He wanted to believe that death wasn’t the only conclusion…
*Thump.* Enrique struck the desk roughly. When Ivan looked up, she was watching him with those same sad eyes.
“So, how do you see us?”
“…What?”
“Are we nothing more than supporting characters in your world’s novel? As you put it, are we just ‘characters’ consumed as lines of text?”
“That’s…”
“No. It can’t be. Isn’t that obvious?”
In a world where ten thousand stories are intertwined, if there are ten thousand protagonists…
Should one protagonist view another as a supporting character?
No. That’s not right. They are all just the protagonists of their own stories. In that case.
“Then is your world and this world fundamentally different? Is that place reality and this merely a fragment of a story? No. I am alive, I am breathing, I hate the sunlight, I hate blessings, I drink blood, and I enjoy tea. Just like you.”
“Enrique…”
“You don’t want to be just a supporting character? Don’t give me that nonsense! You are the lead in your life, and I am the entirety of my own!”
Her eyes burned as if they would devour him.
Ivan quietly looked at her face.
“You wished you weren’t a supporting character? Then what do you think of us? What did you think of me? Ivan. Little Ivan. Did you live thinking the late king you so admired was nothing more than a supporting character in a story? While saying, ‘Do not mourn those who have passed before us,’ were you inwardly sneering?”
“No, I would never…”
“Then live. Live your story, and finish your story. What kind of ending that story will have is not for fate or the world to decide. That is for you to decide.”
At the end of each story lies its own conclusion.
>The path leading to that conclusion is not necessarily determined by a set fate.
Even if the Hero’s Party’s journey remained as a legend, the individuals themselves were not heroes of legend. They were simply individuals, still living and breathing today.
Enrique squeezed Ivan’s hand and looked at him with unwavering eyes.
“Do you want to go back? To your home?”
“…Yes.”
“Then do not wait for fate to end your story. My disciple. Turn your own pages with your own hands. To the very end. To the conclusion.”
“At that end, is there anything I can decide?”
“The choice to turn the page is entirely yours. Just like everyone else. Like every person in this world and in yours.”
The Hero, Maximilian, always smiled. He always smiled as he took one more step forward.
Recalling those times when hope was so desperately scarce, Enrique thought quietly.
That man missed his home. He missed the lover and parents he had back home. Whenever she heard about his comfortable life and his mysterious civilization, Enrique pitied him.
A poor castaway. A dimensional wanderer. A stranger.
But the Hero smiled. He said that ordinariness was used with the same meaning in that world and this one.
So he was not a castaway or a stranger, but an ordinary person.
Carrying the countless burdens on his shoulders, he took one more step forward. To achieve the ‘natural order’ he believed in, another step.
One step at a time, toward the darkest hell of a continent where hope had vanished.
One more step, willingly becoming a beacon for those who lacked the courage to lead the way.
His valor lay in the naturalness and ordinariness he believed in. That was why he became the Hero. Regardless of any privilege, talent, or quality. By endlessly continuing the ordinariness he believed in.
To those who called it extraordinary, he would smile and say he was merely doing what any of them could do.
“If only I had met you a little sooner… If only I had listened to your story a little more seriously, it wouldn’t have come to this… I’m sorry, my disciple.”
“Enrique…”
“I’ll stand watch. Get some sleep.”
“Watch?”
“I can tell by looking at you. You couldn’t sleep properly because you never felt safe anywhere. For at least four years. If it was longer, then for as long as you’ve lived.”
There was no bedroom anywhere in this room.
This boy must have only ever dozed off at that desk, or on that sofa.
What if the protagonist of this world suddenly decides to eliminate a supporting character? What if the story ends while I’m unable to do anything? All while harboring such trivial worries.
While thinking of others as supporting characters, he stubbornly insisted that he himself must not be one. And yet, he believed he could never be the protagonist.
“If necessary, I’ll stand watch for you every night.”
Ivan did not refuse. He was too exhausted.
Kim Seon-woo slowly closed his eyes.
He had misjudged. This world was not a strategy simulation, nor was it a classic RPG. That might have been someone else’s story, but it was not his own.
He was not a soldier in a strategy simulation, nor a scout for the Hero’s Party. The story of Ivan Petrovich, of Kim Seon-woo, had not even turned its first page.
Thirty years had passed since the prologue.
Now, the story’s introduction was over. The name of this story was not a ‘genre,’ but a ‘life.’
Perhaps it was an academy story. Reflecting on his situation, Ivan let out a small laugh.
That sentence no longer angered him.
He was too tired to be angry, too weary.
The hand patting his shoulder was warm.
He felt at ease.
*
He was sixteen, and it had been two years since he started rolling on the battlefield.
Kim Seon-woo gritted his teeth and rolled on the ground. His issued sword had broken. He was out of ammunition, and the demons had finally broken through the defensive line.
When his sword broke, he scrambled on the ground and picked up a spear. When the spear shaft broke, he smashed with his shield. He snatched an axe, swung a greatsword, and held on.
He had never thought he could fight like this. He was more adept at physical combat than he had expected, and he didn't tire easily.
Of course, right now it seemed he was forgetting his fatigue thanks to the intense rush of adrenaline.
Considering his physical abilities, he should have already collapsed from exhaustion. But Ivan rolled on the ground, grabbed a sword. Picked up a spear. Swung an axe and pushed with his shield.
How much time had passed like that?
His body still moved. His vision was still clear. The only sounds were his own breathing and a heart that felt like it would burst at any moment. His nose had long since forgotten any scent other than blood.
He simply blocked what came at him, pushed it back, and swung to survive.
When silence finally fell, Kim Seon-woo noticed a massive shadow looming over him.
“You fought well.”
A deep voice rumbled from above. He turned his gaze and saw a military banner. The banner of Krasilov.
An ally. Kim Seon-woo let his shoulders slump and lowered his head.
The man was on horseback, so he must be of high rank. Under the banner, he must be the commander.
“What is your name?”
“Ivan Petrovich, sir.”
“Your age?”
“Sixteen, sir.”
“Your rank?”
“Conscript.”
The man was silhouetted against the sun, his face obscured. The sunlight haloing him was blinding.
“Turn around.”
Following the commander’s order, he turned his back. He thought it was an order to return to the main camp.
His eyes fell upon a field of corpses so dense the ground was not visible. Countless bodies, demons and humans alike.
Just as Kim Seon-woo was about to frown, a soothing voice reached him.
“Raise your eyes. Look at those who are standing.”
Only then did he see the others. Not the corpses, but the people.
The survivors. The wounded, those barely standing, leaning on broken spears, trembling but somehow alive.
“This battle was supposed to be a loss. We had to commit our forces to another front.”
“…Your Highness!!”
An attendant behind the commander shrieked at his words. The large man paid him no mind and continued.
“But they survived. Ivan Petrovich. Look at those you saved. Straighten your chest. You saved them, you saved the villages behind them, and you saved their families somewhere and the people of those villages.”
The commander deftly dismounted and patted his head. His hand was large.
“So straighten your chest. ‘Little’ Ivan.”
“…I am not little.”
He stood taller than the average man of this era—so much so that even the overseer had mistaken him for an adult.
“The name I earned fighting as you did at your age was ‘Ivan the Great.’ It would not do for you to be called by the same name as I, would it?”
“Your Highness…!!”
The attendant shrieked again. The man with the large hands patted Ivan’s back once more before mounting his horse.
“Treat that boy and teach him.”
“Will you take him into your service?”
“I’d sooner raise a lion in a zoo. Just make a place for him. If he can rise to a position where he can stand on his own, we shall see him again, won’t we?”
He met that man again five years later.
>Five years later, he would belong to the ‘Royal Guard.’
From then on, his name was known as ‘Little’ Ivan. It was an incredibly honorable title.
*
Ivan did not have a nightmare that night.
>The late king, whom he had seen after so long, was as splendid as ever, and so Ivan was able to fall into a deep sleep.
*
[“???-Rank Quest” The Gardener of Saint Yansk University -Canceled-]
>[A miraculous stroke of luck stops your dice. You have survived.]
>[Objective: Eliminate the Saint Yansk University Gardener, Ivan Petrovich -Canceled-]
>[Optional Objective: Persuade Ivan Petrovich -Canceled-]
>[Optional Objective: Conceal Information -Canceled-]
>[Additional Objective: Survive -Canceled-]
>[Failure Penalty: Death -Canceled-]
“What the. What the hell is this…! Someone explain!!”
Yevgeny, or Yujin, screamed as he glared at the blue display.
Naturally, the damn status window offered no reply.
ep6. The Status Window Opened on the First Day of School.